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Image Feature

Clouds were banked against the California coastline and skies were filled with smoke on July 13, 2008, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of the state. Forest fires have been burning in the area since the first week of summer, when thousands of lightning strikes occurred during a weekend of “dry” thunderstorms. Places where MODIS detected active fire are outlined in red.

The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel, and it shows the entire state of California. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of Northern and Southern California in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that highlights burned ground. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey

Fires over the American River Fire Complex in Placer County, Calif., are seen as taken by the Automous Modular Scanner wildfire scanner onboard the Ikhana unmanned aircraft, July 8, 2008, at 10:40 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. The yellow areas depict active fire areas. The image provides officials with not only fire information but also vegetation type and burned-area information. Credit: NASA/Google

New actively burning areas are seen in yellow from above the American River Fire Complex in Placer County, Calif. as captured by NASA’s Autonomous Modular Sensor
(AMS) onboard the Ikhana remotely-operated aircraft on July 8, 2008. Known fire perimeters are indicated in orange, red and green. Many active fire areas are also outside the known perimeter. Credit: NASA/Google

NASA’s Autonomous Modular Sensor onboard the Ikhana unmanned aircraft mapped new actively burning areas over the Basin Fire Complex in Monterey County, Calif. on July 8, 2008 as seen here in yellow. Known fire perimeters are seen in green, purple, blues and reds. Multiple Calif. state agencies distributed the information to fire fighting officials within minutes of collection enabling near real-time tactical decision making. Credit: NASA/Google

The Indians Fire and the Basin Complex Fire in the Los Padres National Forest burned together in the second week of July. Their combined acreage was more than 180,000 acres. Of the two fires, the Basin Complex was the more active, with multiple advancing fronts. According to reports from the National Interagency Fire Center on July 11, the Basin Fire was spreading by isolated and group tree torching and short crown runs (fire spreading through the tops of trees).

This image of the combined fires was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 10, 2008. It is a false-color image, made from visible and infrared light. The burned areas appear reddish brown, while unburned vegetation is bright green. Smoke is transparent blue, while clouds over the Pacific are bluish white. The extremely bright areas indicate actively burning fire fronts; in this type of image, such a bright signature often indicates open flame.

This image is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail). The large image shows a wider area. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of Southern California in additional resolutions and formats, including photo-like natural color.

One of the largest and most destructive fires raging across California over the weekend of July 4 was the Basin Fire, threatening Big Sur, and covering the coast in a thick blanket of smoke. Astronaut Greg Chamitoff, observing the fires from 344 kilometers (215 miles) above the Earth aboard the International Space Station, was able to capture the regional view of the smoke pall. At the time this image was taken, more than 300 fires were burning in California alone. The Basin Fire was triggered by a thunderstorm, had burned more than 80,000 acres, and as of July 10, was still only partially contained.

Astronaut photograph ISS017-E-10303 was acquired July 4, 2008, at 18:03 UTC, with a Nikon D2X digital camera using an 180 mm lens as part of the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 17 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet.

Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Text by Cynthia Evans, NASA-JSC.

The Piute Fire, burning south of Lake Isabella in the Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, was one of the more than 300 wildfires burning across the state of California in early July 2008. The fire started June 28 just north of Twin Oaks, California, and had burned nearly 34,000 acres as of July 10, according to reports from the National Interagency Fire Center. They estimated the fire might not be brought under control for another 2 weeks.

Astronaut photograph ISS017-E-10310 was acquired July 4, 2008, at 18:04 UTC, with a Nikon D2X digital camera using an 180 mm lens as part of the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 17 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet.

Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Text by Cynthia Evans, NASA-JSC.

Dozens of uncontained fires continued to burn in California in the first week of July 2008. The fires, most of them started by an intense lightning storm in the first week of summer, were threatening residences, cultural resources, and utility infrastructure, such as power lines. This image of the state was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on July 9, 2008. Places where MODIS detected active fires are marked in red.

According to the July 10 morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center, among the most active and dangerous fires were the American River Complex, which was spreading via sustained crown runs (through the tops of the trees); the Canyon Complex, which was forcing evacuations in the town of Paradise and areas nearby; and the Basin Complex near Big Sur, which grew more than 4,000 acres in the previous 24 hours.

The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of Northern and Southern California in additional resolutions and formats, including an infrared-enhanced version that highlights burned ground.

An infrared image of the Gap Fire, north of Santa Barbara, Calif., captured by NASA's Autonomous Modular Scanner from the Ikhana unmanned aircraft on July 8. The city can be seen in the lower right of the image. The hot spots of the fire are visible in the middle of the image. They appear as yellow pixels in the center of the pink region.

07.09.08

California Wildfires Seen by the International Space Station

ISS017-E-010303 (4 July 2008) --- The Basin fire in central California is featured in this image photographed by astronaut Greg Chamitoff, Expedition 17 flight engineer, on the International Space Station. One of the largest and most destructive fires raging across California over the July 4 weekend was the Basin fire, threatening Big Sur, and covering the coast in a thick blanket of smoke. Chamitoff, observing the fires from approximately 344 kilometers above Earth (215 miles), was able to capture the regional view of the smoke pall. At the time this image was taken, more than 300 fires were burning in California alone. This Basin fire was triggered by a thunderstorm, has burned 77,000 acres, and is still only partially contained. Photo credit: NASA

ISS017-E-010310 (4 July 2008) --- The Piute fire in California is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 17 crew member on the International Space Station. The Piute fire, burning south of Lake Isabella in the Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, is one of the more than 300 wildfires burning across the state of California. The fire started June 28 just north of Twin Oaks, California, and has burned nearly 14,000 acres so far. Current estimates by fire officials suggest the fire may not be brought under control for another two weeks. Photo credit: NASA07.08.08

When NASA’s Terra satellite passed over Northern California’s Yolla Bolly Range Mountains, about 25 miles southwest of Chico, on July 6, 2008, the seven lightning-triggered fires that were part of the Yolla Bolly Complex Fire were mostly hidden by smoke. In places, however, patches of charcoal-colored burned ground were visible. This false-color image uses the sensor’s observations of visible and infrared light to highlight the contrast between burned ground (charcoal), naturally bare ground (tan, such as the alpine regions of Mount Linn), and vegetation (red). According to the July 8, 2008, report from the National Interagency Fire Center, the Yolla Bolly Complex fire was 7,987 acres and 65 percent contained.

Twelve miles west of Redding, California, a fire touched off by lightning in late June 2008 continued to creep through timber and brush in the Whiskeytown National Recreation area in early July. This false-color image of the area was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on July 6, 2008. The use of infrared and visible light in the image highlights the contrast between vegetation (red), naturally bare ground (tan), and burned ground (charcoal). According to the July 8, 2008, report from the National Interagency Fire Center, the Whiskeytown Complex fire was 5,050 acres and 50 percent contained.

Dozens of uncontained fires continued to burn in California in the first week of July 2008. The fires, most of them started by an intense lightning storm in the first week of summer, were threatening residences, cultural resources, and utility infrastructure, such as power lines. This image of the state was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 6, 2008. Places where MODIS detected active fires are marked in red. A few of the larger fires and fire complexes are labeled. Among the largest and most active fires in the state was the Basin Complex Fire near Big Sur (south of Salinas). That blaze was 74,985 acres in size, having grown 3,700 acres in the previous 24 hours. It was only about 11 percent contained, according to the July 7 morning report from the National Interagency Fire Center.

Lightning strikes have sparked more than a thousand fires in northern California. This image was captured by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer's nadir (vertical-viewing) camera on 27 June 2008. Cape Mendocino is at the center of the image and Mt. Shasta is near the upper right. Concentrated smoke is visible in several river valleys and the large smoke cloud extends over the Pacific Ocean for hundreds of kilometers.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Numerous wildfires continue to burn out of control throughout California. Many of these fires were ignited in late June by dry lighting and made worse by parched conditions and a lack of rainfall, fire officials report.

NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of several of the blazes as it passed over California on June 30, 2008. This image specifically shows the fires burning in the area south of Monterey, some of the state’s largest according to fire officials. Active fires are outlined in red. Smoke can also be seen billowing north up the California coastline.

According to news reports, about 364,600 acres, or almost 570 square miles, of land throughout the state have already burned, and most of the blazes have not yet been contained.

Fires near Big Sur, Calif., continued to burn unchecked when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image on Sunday, June 29. In Northern California alone, fires have consumed more than 346,000 acres.At least 18,000 people have deployed to attempt to extinguish or control the flames. Air quality as far away as San Francisco has been adversely impacted by the dense clouds of smoke and ash blowing towards the northwest. The satellite image combines a natural color portrayal of the landscape with thermal infrared data showing the active burning areas in red. The dark area in the lower right is a previous forest fire.

ASTER is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched December 18, 1999, on NASA's Terra satellite. The instrument was built by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. A joint U.S./Japan science team is responsible for validation and calibration of the instrument and the data products.